Indestructible Hulk Annual #1Review

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Hulk and Iron Man take a tropical vacation.

By Jesse Schedeen

The pain of Red She-Hulk's cancellation still lingers after several months. The good news is that writer Jeff Parker has been given another chance to dabble in Hulk's world with Indestructible Hulk Annual #1. If the thought of an Indestructible Hulk issue without Mark Waid attached doesn't appeal to you, then you must not be familiar with Parker's work.

This issue should appeal to anyone that prefers good, simple, standalone superhero adventures over event tie-ins or continuity-driven conflicts. Parker frames the issue around a team-up between Iron Man and Hulk. The early pages flash back to Banner and Stark's college years, as an ornery professor schools them on the realities of funding and government intervention in the scientific community. From there, the script focuses on a team-up as both heroes encounter the same professor on a remote tropical island.

The plot here is about as simple and predictable as can be. It's obvious from the beginning that the professor will turn out to be a kooky mad scientist with all manner of unholy monstrosities and weapons at his disposal. This isn't even the first Hulk storyline this fall to deal with a variation on that trope. But Parker injects the story with a light, breezy feel that keeps the conflict humming along despite the lack of twists or any real sense of danger for the two heroes. The interaction between Stark and Banner is consistently amusing, and Parker does a great job of reflecting the current struggles and personality changes both characters have gone through in the last year.

The art in this issue is is nicely textured and visually evocative thanks to its use of color and elements like Benday dots. It bodes well for Mahmud Asrar's role on the relaunched Wolverine and the X-Men series next year, as this issue proves he can handle simple character interaction and wild and crazy superhero showdowns in equal measure.